Lin-Manuel Miranda continues his streak as Disney’s darling, first jumping on the House of Mouse’s ship to co-write the songs to 2016’s animated Polynesian-set adventure, Moana. He then was announced as the co-lead of Mary Poppins Returns, the new sequel with Emily Blunt to the musical classic that originally starred Julie Andrews.

Now, Miranda is signing on to score the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid with one of his idols, and the original composer of the 1989 animated classic, Alan Menken.

Disney’s 1991 Beauty and the Beast famously featured a pop version of the title song, performed by Céline Dion and Peabo Bryson and played over the end credits. In the upcoming live-action remake, that same honor will go to Ariana Grande and John Legend, as we learned last week. But it turns out Dion will have a place on the new soundtrack as well, singing an all-new tune written just for the movie. Read More »

Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast features three new ballads from composer Alan Menken. Menken, who recently wrote “The Great Beyond” for Sausage Party, collaborated with the late Howard Ashman and lyricist Tim Rice on the original animated film’s tunes. 25 years later, he’s now working on director Bill Condon‘s Beauty and the Beast, which will feature new songs sung by Belle (Emma Watson) and Beast (Dan Stevens), in addition to a song performed by Tony Award winner Audra McDonald.

Disney Channel has premiered the first trailer for Tangled: The Series, an animated television series based on the 2010 feature film from Walt Disney Animation Studios. And no, this doesn’t look like one of those cheap television spin-offs from the 1990’s, the animation looks stylized and beautiful. And Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi reprise their roles, voicing Rapunzel and Eugene (aka Flynn Rider), respectively. The show also reunites the movie’s composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater. Hit the jump to watch the Disney’s Tangled: The Series trailer.

Now that he’s no longer starring in Broadway’s Hamilton several days a week, Lin-Manuel Miranda is free to do whatever he wants… and what he wants to do, apparently, is become BFFs with Disney. Not only did he help compose music for last winter’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens and this fall’s Moana, he’s set to co-star in the studio’s upcoming Mary Poppins Returns. And now he’s set to reunite with the Mouse House yet again for The Little Mermaid, a live-action remake of the 1989 animated classic. Read More »

The final numbers for this past weekend’s box office aren’t in yet, but it looks like Sausage Party will have raked in just over $33 million. That’s an impressive debut for an R-rated animated comedy, especially opening up against the second weekend of blockbuster like Suicide Squad. It appears audiences were interested in something that was truly original and went against the grain of what’s been playing on most screens all summer.

Now a new Sausage Party featurette dives into one of the most important elements of the movie, though it’s not a piece you’d immediately recognize as being integral to a movie like this. Since Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg aren’t animators, it should come as no surprise that they brought in experienced animation directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan to helm the feature. But what’s truly surprising is they got Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken, best known for his work on The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, to compose the score and the opening musical number in the grocery store. The filmmakers and composer talk about their approach to the score in a new Sausage Party featurette. Read More »

For those who haven’t heard, last weekend saw The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California host an event called The Little Mermaid Live. The event rounded up some impressive singing talent from film and television along with a 71-piece orchestra to perform the Alan Menken‘s iconic music from Disney’s animated classic. Thankfully, since nearly everyone has a camera in their pocket now, we get to see some of the highlights from the show.

Renditions of The Little Mermaid songs from the show featured pop singer Sara Bareilles as Ariel, Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect) as Ursula, Darren Criss (Glee) as Prince Eric, Titus Burgess (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) as Sebastian, and John Stamos as the frighteningly enthusiastic chef Louie. Plus, there was a special guest that fans of the original movie absolutely went crazy for. Find out who it was, and watch some of The Little Mermaid Live videos after the jump. Read More »

In April, we told you that Disney would be producing a stage production of Tangled for their Disney Cruise ships. Tangled: The Musical premiered onboard the Disney Magic this month, and now we have video footage of the hour-long musical’s three new songs composed by Beauty and the Beast/Aladdin composer Alan Menken. Hit the jump to hear the three new songs in the footage from the new musical numbers, as well as get a behind the scenes tour of how they brought the animated world to life on the stage.

If you grew up in the ’90s, you grew up listening to Alan Menken‘s work. The composer was behind some of the biggest hits of the Disney Renaissance era, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, as well as non-animated classics like Little Shop of Horrors and Newsies. But the kids of the ’90s have now grown up to become foul-mouthed adults, and Menken has evolved along with them.

One of Menken’s latest projects is Sausage Party, Seth Rogen‘s R-rated animated comedy. Rogen recently shared a photo from their collaboration to give us just a tiny idea of what this completely bizarre-sounding feature has in store for us. Check it out after the jump. Read More »

The passing of Robin Williams removed any chance of Mrs. Doubtfire 2 ever happening, but it turns out the character will endure regardless. In a new interview, composer Alan Menken revealed he’s working on a Mrs. Doubtfire musical for the stage. Read more below. Read More »